Brilliant Reader Goldenfoot put this up over at Bluesky:
This is absolutely true. Tommy John DID face Roger Maris seven times — though not quite as far back as 1961. They first battled in 1964, when Maris was still a part of the Yankees, and John was a rookie for Cleveland. Maris did what thousands of batters would do against the Tommy John sinkerball over the next two-plus decades. He grounded out. Maris managed no hits in his seven at-bats against John. He did walk once.
Then, at the end of his career, John faced McGwire 22 times. John was among the all-time greats at keeping the ball in the ballpark — he gave up the fewest homers per nine three times and finished top 10 in that category TWELVE TIMES in his career. But McGwire got him twice in one game, May 31, 1987. John got the last laugh, though; those were the only two runs he gave up, and he got the win.
I love stuff like this — I imagine you do too.
So let’s take it a step further — here are some other batters Tommy John faced:
Willie Mays AND Willie Mays Aikens
Roy Sievers AND Walt Weiss (Rookies of the year almost 40 years apart)
Cal AND Billy Ripken
Henry Aaron AND Henry Cotto
Don Money AND Donnie Baseball
Lou Whitaker AND Lou Piniella AND Lou Brock AND Jesús Alou
Mickey Mantle AND Mickey Lolich AND Mickey Rivers AND Mickey Hatcher
Joe Pepitone AND Joe Morgan AND Joe Adcock AND Joe Torre AND Joe Carter AND Joe Niekro AND Super Joe Charboneau
I could do this all day! But I’m in Los Angeles getting ready for our event tonight at the Aero Theater — Mike and I will introduce and talk about A League of Their Own to open the American Cinematheque Podcast Film Festival. You can get tickets here, we’d certainly love to see you.
And so it is time to unveil the greatest baseball movie ever made, as selected by our panel of baseball fans and experts. You can look at the first 73 here:
This one was INCREDIBLY CLOSE — it came down to the final votes.
